Ikea, bugs, and getting things done the French way

My dear blog readers, I regret the hiatus, but I am now very much back online!  We would like to congratulate ourselves on the new addition to our little family - the very sleek and talented little FreeBox.  Chez Ben and Emily: now comes with WiFi!

Say hello to our little angel!

Getting internet has been just about the only good news we've had in several days.  We rode the train up to Lyon on Friday and spent a good hour in the agency's office signing our lives away on a lengthy, single-spaced lease.  It's extremely difficult to kick out renters in France, so they make it as hard and patience-trying as possible to even secure a place.  Our guarant was kind enough to drive our belongings up and be present at the meeting.  In fact, they wouldn't let us sign the lease without an in-person signature from our guarant.  Nothing faxed, nothing scanned.  They must see the blood, sweat, and tears from all participants on every leaf of paper.

We arrived in Lyon several hours before meeting at the agency, so we spent the afternoon lounging in a park near the office.  It occurred to me then that we were literally homeless people since we no longer had an abode in Pertuis, and we hadn't yet signed anything for Lyon.  The squeamishness I felt at that thought was a bit terrifying.  It was rather a relief to arrive at our new place and reassure myself that it wasn't all just some dream.

But then a harder reality hit us as we settled in for the night.  We had no furniture.  The apartment was completely devoid of anything.  Apartments in France (at least in our price range) rarely come equipped with appliances, and our place is no exception.  Never mind that we had no bed or couch or anything; we also (still) lack a fridge, stove/oven, microwave, washing machine, etc.  But appliances became a secondary priority after our first night of sleeping on the hardwood floor.  Thankfully, I packed two blankets with me, so we weren't totally without comfort.  My back was still pretty sore in the morning.

La chambre

La chambre sans meubles

Salle de bain (no toilet in here, it's in another room)

Cuisine et salle à manger

The hallway; Ben confirming when we would get hot water

Looking into the living room (left) and bedroom (right)

Séjour.  The fireplace is infested with bees, hence the blue tarp.

Séjour et alcove (using as our office).  Look at the beautiful hardwood floor!!!

Saturday was reserved for obtaining things on which to seat our tired bums.  Luckily, the closest Ikea is only a 30-minute tram ride away.  After taking showers in the cold water (did you really think we would move in and immediately have hot water?  HAH!), we ventured up to that big blue and yellow Swedish warehouse.  Upon arrival, we were informed that we must have our entire purchase completed by 4pm if we wanted same-day delivery; we had three hours to choose everything...

Ben, bravely venturing forth

This next section shall be entitled: We conquered Ikea!  Or the time Ben ran over a small child with hundreds of pounds of furniture packaging.

Somehow, we managed to navigate our way through the labyrinth of Swedish temptation, and we actually agreed right away on everything we wanted to buy.  For being long-distance for the past four years, I think it's a small miracle that we just happen to have the same aesthetic.  Except that Ben complains that the dinnerware I picked out is too "girly," but he's "secure enough in his masculinity to eat off of it."  It's teal... 

We loaded up three full carts with packaging from the liability warehouse (seriously, Ikea must have an excellent legal team for all the accidents that must occur when people try to pull heavy packages off those shelves).  I won't disclose just how much we spent, but oh good gods of furniture my credit card had a hole burned right through the middle.  We barreled our way out of the store; Ben pushing a cart in front of him and pulling a cart behind him, and I trailed pulling the third card.  The cart that Ben was pulling rolled askew and before I could dash up to stop it, it rolled right into a little girl who was sampling Swedish meatballs.  It was one of those slow motion moments where you see disaster about to strike, yet you're helpless to prevent it.  The poor kid fell flat on her back, but she was unhurt.  After profusely apologizing to the annoyed parents (get your kid out of the aisle where people are pushing heavy carts!), we scurried out.  Obviously, it wasn't funny that a small child was now bawling because of us, but for some reason, we both just dissolved into giggles.  I think it was the sheer shock of having just spent a small fortune on furniture and then the bizarre moment of tumbling over a little girl.  I firmly believe that Ikea actively saps one's sanity in order to make people buy more, more, MORE, so I'll blame the Swedes.

The delivery total came to 44 packages, to be delivered to our house between 6-9 later that night.  So we plodded back to our empty apartment to await the delivery man, who arrived at around 7.  He removed all 44 of our packages from his truck, and then drove off without even the tiniest of help brining anything up to our third floor walk-up.  It's a good thing Ben has super-human strength, or we would have built our couch right there on the sidewalk and just had to deal with lounging out-of-doors...

Des colis dans la cuisine.

Rolled up matelas (mattress)

More packages...

Even more packages!!!

After we struggled to get everything safely stored in our apartment (think: Ross and Rachel trying to get that couch up the stairs, "PIVOT, PIVOT!"), we dashed out for some quick kebabs before vowing to put together as much furniture as possible that night.  Since the mattress recommended 72 hours of decompression time, we began with our lovely new pull-out couch (in grey because we agreed that's not too flashy).  In a day that began with picking out Ikea furniture together and ended with putting together a heavy and complicated pull-out couch, I'm a little shocked to report that we didn't want to kill each other!  In fact, we pretty closely resembled the couple of 10 years in this video.  The only thing I really learned from the experience is that I don't screw things tightly enough... also, Ikea furniture is in fact NOT inclusive off all tools needed to do the building.  Oops.  That meant a Sunday morning mad dash to the grocery store to get a hammer and screwdriver.  We got some weird looks for that one.

Couch!  In front of the bees to hide the ugly blue tarp.

And the coffee table to go with it.

The couch is actually quite comfortable to sleep on, so if anyone wants to come visit, we have a place for you!  Just don't be alarmed when our pet bees buzz you awake from your slumber in the early morning.

We spent the entirety of Sunday building more furniture.  After the coffee table, we assembled the raw wood kitchen table and chairs:

Cardboard on top of the table to protect the wood before we stain it.

Ben modeling the utility of our new table.

We moved on to the bookshelf, and finally got to the bed.  If anyone ever saw my place in DC, you'll know that I made the mistake of buying a full size Ikea bed frame for my queen size mattress.  I had to stuff my mattress into the frame on top of the sideways box frame.  I couldn't bear the shame of disassembling and returning the wrong frame, so I slept on it mismatching for over a year...  I triple-checked the sizes this time, and sure enough, we got matching frame, mattress, duvet, and sheets!  For the win!

The mattress, awaiting its home.

Frame and slats under construction.

The beautiful finished product!

Once finished with the bed, we moved on to individual projects - I to my desk, Ben to his dresser.  By this point, our hands were feeling raw with all the twisting, pounding, hammering.  Still, furniture looks far better when built than it does sitting in its packaging.

My desk, with cardboard under the chair to protect the hardwood.

The alcove off the living room; Ben's desk will be on the right.

The living room at night.

This meme came to mind more than once over the weekend.  That's actually the dresser Ben built.

This is the point in the weekend when tragedy struck.  A complete catastrophe after our exhausting few days of moving in and assembling our lives.  On Friday night, when we slept on the floor, Ben had the worst itches on his wrists.  I chalked it up to sensitivity to my blanket since I didn't have any of the same itches.  Nothing to worry about.  But by Sunday night, we both had little red itchy sores on our arms... I had a sinking feeling that I tried to deny all afternoon, but by the evening, I typed "bed bug sores" into Google on Ben's phone, and sure enough... we had bed bugs.  I realized that I had even killed one earlier in the day on the window sill, though I didn't know what they looked like then.  I relayed the severity of my discovery to Ben, and we surveyed all our newly built furniture with dismay, fearing that we would be advised to discard it all.  We went to bed itching phantom itches, and I had nightmares full of icky, bitey critters.

Bright and early Monday morning, Ben called our agency, though they seemed totally unfazed by our urgent issue.  One guy even hung up on Ben, but he persisted, and they finally gave him the contact info for an exterminator - on their dime, thankfully.  The exterminator didn't want to come until some time later in October, but Ben demanded he come immediately.  And so Tuesday was spent laundering (in hot water, even the wool) and tightly sealing all of our clothes and linens in trash bags.  All of our belongings were also sealed in trash bags in anticipation of the exterminator coming in the evening to spray.  We were instructed to pull out any clothes we'd need for the next two weeks, and then reseal everything and keep it in the kitchen (bed bugs don't live in the kitchen or on tile; they love furniture and hardwood floors).  We also aren't allowed to clean anything since the spray needs to stay on all the surfaces.

After the spraying.

Just when we were ready to be settled :(

In two weeks, the exterminator will return to spray again, and until then, everything stays bagged.  Hopefully at that point, we'll be given the ok to unpack and clean, but it's incredibly frustrating to still be living out bags at this point.  I was so looking forward to neatly folding all my clothes in the closet and dresser, hanging up the drapes, lounging on the couch, working from my desk.  Instead, we're mainly living out of the kitchen since the tile is inhospitable to bugs.  Luckily, we haven't seen any more live ones, and we haven't been bitten again, but living out of bags makes me feel so anxious and uneasy.

Bags in the bathroom.  Tile = good.  Wood = bad.

Living out of bags in the kitchen.

Fortunately, we don't need to throw anything out.  We were even ok'd to sleep on our bed, provided we wrap the mattress under the sheets.  So after waiting until 11pm to go back up to our sprayed apartment, we saran wrapped the mattress.  I wish I'd taken a picture of the mattress all wrapped up, but I was nearing a nervous breakdown at that point and just needed sleep.  The good news is, our bed is very comfy, but it feels like sleeping on a diaper with all the plastic wrap under the sheets.  Of all the bizarre things I've done so far in France...

Finally, we were able to return to some normalcy on Wednesday, yesterday.  After delightfully hot showers, we made our way over to my university to get me registered for classes.  No surprise here, the office is only open from 1:30 to 4:30pm each day.  Obviously.

... un petit digression... French working hours actually schedule a lunch break.  Hours are usually plastered to the doors as 9-12, 1:30-5/6 each day.  Promptly at 12, each business shutters, and all employees head off to smoke/drink coffee/eat/who knows for 90 minutes.  I realize America has a terrible reputation for overworking; while I was working for corporate America, it was essentially an unspoken rule that you don't take a lunch break.  If you're one of those humans who still needs food to survive, you'd better eat that sandwich quickly at your desk while looking busy with work on your computer screen (while surreptitiously checking Facebook).  The other office drones gain nourishment from spouting business lingo like "out-of-pocket," "get it to me by EOB," and "schedule an FUP asap, and then we can have a FUP meeting to our FUP meeting."  (In which FUP= follow-up... just... why?)  Drove me NUTS.  Working hours at my old job were 8:30-5:30, and if you wanted to look really good, you arrived at 7am each day and probably slept on the floor under your cube each night.  However.  One can't argue that things don't get done in America.  We're nothing if not extraordinarily efficient go-getter types.  If the motto of America is "if there's a will there's a way," then the French motto is, "Nope.  I need a cigarette."  I believe there's something to be gained from not working like a mad person for 8 hours straight (fewer mistakes made when people aren't pathetically over-exhausted), but a lunch break in the store hours...?!  I suppose it's my American capitalist conditioning that doesn't understand this system.  In France, there's little motivation to work long hours in the hopes of becoming rich; the taxes are just too high.

Anyway.  We made a little detour to Ben's campus in order for him to accomplish some work and so we could get a meal before heading back over to my university.  When we finally did get to the open office and explain our situation (the director had agreed to let me register late at the behest of Ben's advisor), the answer was no.  Nope, sorry can't do it.  This is what I mean by the "French way."  The first answer is always no, even when we're in the right.  So Ben argued, while I hovered by, frustrated by the lack of initiative from these people.  Eventually, they said they would need to consult the director again, but I should probably be able to register for this semester.  It's as though every interaction is based on a barter system.  "No" is the default position of every administrative drone.  "Can't do it."  But dammit if we aren't some persistent Americans!

This morning, the office sent an email to Ben saying that in this exceptional case, I'm all set to register for classes this semester.  Ben needed to work all day at his university, so it was up to me to head back over to the office and pay my registration fee.  I thought it would be easy-peasy since the secretary had seen us yesterday and had approved all my documents.  Of course it wasn't easy.  The registration asked for a copy of my birth certificate, which obviously I don't carry around with me and didn't have time to request my parents to send to me before today.  If yesterday my documents were all in hand, I didn't think the birth certificate was necessary to have since I also had a copy of my passport in the documents.  When I asked to pay the fee, the answer was again a resounding no until I had my birth certificate.  But I wasn't leaving that office without getting my way.  I asked if I could please pay now and register and then send them my birth certificate tomorrow or Monday.  No.  But don't they understand that the more time I waste the more classes I'm missing?  They understood, but no.  All of this was conducted in French until I finally asked the girl if she spoke English (in the office that deals specifically with non French speakers, why did she expect me to argue my case in French?  UGH.  I tried though.).  We continued in English, and they finally agreed to let me start classes tomorrow, so long as I bring my birth certificate and pay the registration fee tomorrow.

What I don't really understand is that the secretary didn't consult her superior, she didn't gain permission from her boss, she just talked it over with the other secretaries in the room.  The whole rigamarole of forcing me to argue my case in French could have been totally avoided.  I hate to say it, but if this same situation occurred in America, they would have had me pay right away and bring my birth certificate later.  The answer would have been yes, especially since permission had been granted for me to register by the director.  Nevertheless, I'm excited to go to my first class tomorrow at 8am!

And so that's all we've accomplished in the past week!  I've been close to tears more than a few times, but our motto has become, "we're going to make this work... we have to make this work!"  I'm looking forward to getting into a routine and decorate one we're decidedly bug-free in two weeks.  The next big thing I need to obtain is a job.  If anyone knows anyone in Lyon who needs a nanny/babysitter, I'm your girl!  Ah, la vie en France!

Chez nous!